Yesterday we talked about Miley Cyrus’ new video for “Adore You”. The video featured Miley rolling around under gauzy sheets and pretending to touch herself. The video leaked one day early on Christmas Day, and I remember looking at the views yesterday (they were at about 20,000) and thinking, “Oh how the ‘mighty’ have fallen.” Miley shattered the VEVO record with “Wrecking Ball” (19 million views in 24 hours), but that was because she was naked on a wrecking ball. Duh. Well Miley thinks people tuned into that video because of her awesome singing and artistry. She’s fronting like “Adore You” would have brought the same number of VEVO hits if it had been properly released on the planned day.

Riiiight. I’m guessing someone on Miley’s team (Larry Rudolph?) leaked the video a day early so they could pretend that a lack of VEVO views didn’t matter. Miley is heading out on tour in February, and “hopefully some people show up.” You’d better believe her team is nervous.

Miley has a new interview out with the New York Times. It’s been over a month since Miley did a true media blitz, and this interview puts Miley back in obnoxious form. She talks about her minstrelsy at the VMAs and says the “new Miley” is all just an act. As in … she doesn’t really sit around dropping perc and molly and smoking pot all day. Ha. She also shades Joe Jonas for saying Miley pressured him into hitting a joint. Plus Miley says she chose to lose that Vogue cover (?), and she forecasts her own irrelevance. Let’s do this:

She wasn’t racist at the VMAs: “It’s actually really funny how many people could watch my performance, and they think it was, like, sexist and degrading to women, and somehow people found that it was racist, which I couldn’t even wrap my mind around. Because I’m like: ‘How do I win? If I have white dancers, then I’m racist. If I have black girl dancers, then I’m racist.’ We know we’re not racist, and I know I’m not putting down women. People got a rise out of me saying that I was a feminist, but I am. I’m telling women be whoever you want to be.”

Her transformation is all an act: “I went from people just thinking I was, like, a baby to people thinking I’m this, like, sex freak that really just pops molly and does lines all day. It’s like, ‘Has anyone ever heard of rock ‘n’ roll?’ There’s a sex scene in pretty much every single movie, and they go, ‘Well, that’s a character.’ Well, that’s a character. I don’t really dress as a teddy bear and, like, twerk on Robin Thicke, you know?”

Forcasting her own irrelevance? “Last night, I was talking about some Madonna performances, and I said, ‘At some point, everything becomes irrelevant.’ Like, no one even thinks about when she did ‘Like a Virgin’ at the V.M.A.s. That just becomes a standard, where it’s just like, ‘Oh, that’s her thing.’ So, I feel like now that I did the V.M.A.s, that just kind of became a standard for me, and then anytime I do anything else, they’re like, ‘Miley kept it tame tonight.’”

The difficulty of being Miley: “I watch everyone’s music videos, to the point where I’m O.C.D., looking at every single thing they’re wearing and what they’re doing. Before, because I didn’t have my own personal self yet, it was hard for me to watch that kind of stuff. I was so jealous of what everyone else got to do, because I didn’t get to truly be myself yet. But now I realize how much they’re not being themselves either. You don’t have to be signed to Disney Channel to be put in a box, or to be rated PG. I’m with artists sometimes, and I’ll take a picture of them or whatever. They make me delete it. It’s insane. I’ll get someone to, like, flash me, and they’ll be, like, ‘You have to delete it!’ I had to do that when I was 14 or 15, but even then I didn’t care. Like, if someone was videoing me ripping a bong, I didn’t care, so it’s just funny to me. I’m like: ‘Dude, you’re 30. Like, why can’t someone see a picture of your [breasts]?’”

Hmm: “I don’t have a bunch of celeb friends, because I feel like some of them are a little scared of the association. This is terrible. I was backstage with [the rising pop star] Ariana Grande. I’m like, ‘Walk out with me right now and get this picture, and this will be the best thing that happens to you, because just you associating with me makes you a little less sweet.’”

On Joe Jonas blaming her for his pot smoking: “If you want to smoke weed, you’re going to smoke weed. There’s nothing that two little girls are going to get you to do that you don’t want to do. I thought maybe he was saying that like it was going to make him look badass. We were so young that it’s actually like, ‘How did you get peer pressured by me?’”

Did she really lose a Vogue cover? “I can’t say too much. But it was where I was kind of going to have to do this trade-off, and I wasn’t willing to. Right now, me doing any kind of cover for anything that’s like, a Seventeen or Teen Vogue or whatever, the way that I talk isn’t the way that people that are 17 really understand. There was a thing that Kurt Cobain said, something like, ‘There’s a special place in hell for people that glamorize drugs,’ and I never want to be that person that’s, like, talking to 16- and 17-year-olds and being like, ‘Smoke weed.’ I’ve got a little sister. I don’t want her to smoke weed, and it’s not because I think weed is bad, but … she’ll make the choice. Or even, like, my language. I don’t know how to not talk the way I talk. I would rather have everything I do be 100 percent honest. I just want to be who I am.”

Miley is just full of contradictions. She’s says everything she does is “100 percent honest,” but somehow she’s still just playing “a character.” I don’t really understand what Miley’s saying about her lost Vogue cover. Miley wants us to think she gave the foam finger to Anna Wintour, but it’s coming out all wrong. Or maybe the Vogue cover was really a Teen Vogue cover all along. In that case, Miley doesn’t understand that all of her antics are influencing teen girls whether she covers their damn magazine or not. They read the internet where all these interviews show up. They see photos of her at events where she’s wearing nipple pasties and thongs. She’s so ridiculous.

Oh and Miley tweeted this before-and-after picture of the Cyrus family. It’s comforting to know that Billy Ray’s facial hair never changes.

BeerayawwwdnBe, even if she had bragged about having her amazing 7th threesome, that still wouldn’t make it accurate or fair to call her a tramp. But incidentally, your story is wrong though. It’s not that she bragged about hooking up with 4 people. One of the tabloids- either Us weekly, Star, or intouch, had a likely false rumor that she hooked up with four guys in a weekend.

“I went from people just thinking I was, like, a baby to people thinking I’m this, like, sex freak that really just pops molly and does lines all day.” –

Well, yes we do. You have worked hard to cultivate that image. You sang about dancing with “Molly” and “trying to get a line in the bathroom”, clearly a reference to cocaine. You stated “Hollywood is a coke town, but weed is so much better. And molly, too… Those are happy drugs—social drugs. They make you want to be with friends. You’re out in the open. You’re not in a bathroom”. Now, not that I see marijuana as a drug any more than I do wine, but I don’t talk about wine like it’s part of who I am on a molecular level or defines the town I live in. You purposely chained lyrics, loudly and obviously, on Jimmy Kimmel live to indicate getting “high”.

You hired a very… questionable man to film a video of you, naked and grinding on a wreaking ball. Frankly, it made sense to be naked as you were emotionally naked, but the use of “Uncle Terry” as your director and your hip grinding took the attention from your emotional portrayal of a woman damaged by loss to that of a woman exerting her sexual prowess.

If this is not the image you want, change it, but don’t point fingers at the consumers of your image and say we are at fault for believing what you have campaigned hard to sell. You did dress as a teddy bear and attempt to tweak (that is not tweaking, by the way) on Robin Thicke. Perhaps in your mind that is a character, but you were introduced as “Miley Cyrus”. When Justin Timberlake takes the stage and sings, he is being Justin Timberlake. In fact, most singers would argue that on stage they are at their most raw and uncensored selves. Get the point?

Hollywood starlets have a long history of denying while indulging then crashing. Why would we expect anything other than what Hollywood history has proven again and again to be true? So, just as Birdie said; You reap what you sow.

No more than you do, having read this post and my reply. I enjoy the indulgence of celebrity gossip, much like the writers for this site do… so you are not only a hypocrite for enjoying reading this as well, but you also are insulting the people who like this so much they do it for a living. Wow. Two for one special, huh?

@La Zingaro: I highly doubt she thought that much about it. I could see someone having a stream of consciousness like that while reading over the article. Not everyone needs to take a bunch of time sitting and contemplating things before responding, especially things as superficial as celebrity gossip. And even if she did, is it really that superficial? Celebrities and pop culture are incredibly influential on society, or at least provide a clear reflection of it.

Exactly. She comes across as immature, self-absorbed and full of herself. I always look at these former kid stars and their lack of education hurts them in ways beyond just a lack of basic knowledge, but also in ways of broadening their minds and learning critical thinking skills.

There’s a small coalition who probably have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with her, either because they love or hate her. But i agree, to most people she is disposable. Being disposable is all part of this “character” she is playing.

She seems to genuinely think she is an icon. And she’s definitely confusing fame with being a worthwhile or substantive person.

Yup, and now because she and her team are worried that her tour won’t draw crowds so their backpedaling on the “badass wildchild” image. I don’t think they’re going to be able to get that genie back into its bottle.

You can’t complain when the image that you’ve been obnoxiosly been trying to push on everyone finally sticks. All those months of her tongue hanging out, and acting like a fool paid off. Now deal with the storm.

that’s why its so boring and played out. Shock value for the sake of shock value is meaningless and gets old fast. Dont even pretend this is about feminism, we all know this was about shedding the Disney image an trying to win cool points for being “edgy.” Oh, you rebel.

I agree- she is really young, she likes the attention. She went overboard but if I was her age I’d probably do the same. You can’t discount her managements role in her new image. Also- It’s ok to contradict yourself – she’s still finding out who she is regardless of what she says.

It’s not ok to contradict herself when she’s been claiming that her stunt-queen antics are who she really is and she’s just being herself and 100% honest, and then says it’s all just a character. That’s not “finding out who she is”, that’s lying about the fact that her public persona is faked for the attention.

This is not about figuring out who you are. This is about manipulation. And she is manipulating. She doesn’t care about who she is. She cares about the attention. What she shows us is who she really is.

I’m tired of this girl and her shtick, but I agree with you, since she has to do this all in the public eye. She’s embarrassing herself constantly. I honestly don’t think we should put THAT much thought into what she’s saying because she probably doesn’t understand what she’s saying or doing either. She seems too obsessed with getting attention and cares too much what others think of her. A little self-respect really goes a long way, Miley, that is how you find yourself!

I don’t feel sorry for her, she wanted attention and she’s getting it, that’s life. She needs to grow up and part of growing up is learning from your mistakes. She’s made a very public ass of herself and now she has to deal with the consequences.

If you’re going to quote Kurt Cobain, you should get it right. He said: “I think people who glamorize drugs are f*@#ing assholes and if there’s hell they’ll go there.” She’s confusing that with the special place in hell for women who don’t support other women. She glamorizes drugs with her pot and molly references. So I guess she’s got reserved seating in hell.

Each and every single comment out there in the media has been wordsmithed by miley’s team. There’s nothing genuine about the crap miley spouts. Agree with all she’s been told to backtrack because her “tour” will lose a lot of money. A million YouTube views v credible fully sold stadium shows? I know deep down which team Molly oops Miley really wants. It’s not going to happen, pumpkin. And it’s her fault.

No she isn’t, and I can’t stand it when pop tarts such as her are categorized as rock, when they are so far from it. I made the mistake of watching her new video, and now I need brain bleach to rid myself of that image. It really must take a lot of talent to keep touching your mouth, looking like you’re wiping away drool. A decade or two from now Cobain’s music will still be relevant, and hers will be obsolete. Bargain bin trash at Walmart.

No, Miley, I for one believe that you also twerk and lick sledgehammers all day too.

She is so lost, she contradicts herself in three minute’s time. She needs to either learn how to express herself more articulately, or choose a story before the interview and make all her comments conform to that one thing. I love the catfight brewing between her and Joe Jonas!

As for this new “character” of hers in which she’s popping molly, smoking weed, twerking everywhere… Didn’t she also say in another interview that people just think she’s some “ratchet white girl”? DUH! It’s like she wants people to be immersed in her charade while acknowledging it’s a charade.

Wellll, Miley, you did kind of convey the message ( in all of your recent songs) that you like to party with Molly all night and snort coke in the bathroom at clubs. Ya been pretty open about that stuff so I’m with commenter #1 on this one: you reap what you sow. So sad – such a great girl, with a great career ahead of her and then she decides that being a stage whore is the way to go.

It’s amusing how she only addresses the gossip that flatters her ego and ignores the gossip that isnt so flattering to her image. Example: she’ll address gossip that she is sex crazed and using drugs but ignores that people also say she is desperate and thirsty for the public’s interest and that’s the true power behind her pathetic cliche ‘good girl gone bad’ antics.

Yeah, I think the “good girl gone bad” is a contrivance. I think her team thought “it worked for Rihanna”. The thing about Rihanna is that I think with her first album she WAS a bad girl whose image was carefully crafted so she appealed to men, but was relatable to women. She must have put her foot down with Jay-Z and her management and demanded to be more herself and have that reflected in her music.

I wish people would stop associating pot with other drugs already. It’s not the same as heroin, coke, Molly, etc. The reason why it’s illegal is because of money & only money. Pot has so many medicinal & practical uses that would bankrupt the pharmaceutical company.

Only extreme pot smoking could do that, i.e. being stoned 24/7, and she’d have to have some underlying issues to begin with. My friends and I have all been casual pot smokers for oh…about 45 years now and we’re all totally fine, upstanding, normal, educated and responsible human beings.

More likely your sister was self-medicating. There are mental illnesses that become obvious in late adolescence/early adulthood. It is very common for people to use marijuana, alcohol, and other recreational drugs to try to deal with the symptoms. Typically this isn’t so helpful, especially when used to excess. But prescription drugs to treat such illnesses often have serious side effects as well, and it can be quite difficult to match dose and drug to the person. So it’s understandable that even if drugs are prescribed, some people prefer the lesser evil. Anyway, the disease is typically present first. Outside observers may think the drug use caused it, but actually the drugs are a response to the emergence of the disease.

I enjoy a bit of pot every now and then myself but I don’t think it should be endorsed or promoted, it’s a choice people should make. I classify it similarly to alcohol. It’s fine in moderation or when used responsibly but overuse or constantly turning to it when you’re feeling down…then it’s a problem!

I have had some friends, and some patients, who have pretty much been stoned for so long its their normal state of being. There are anxious and unhappy when they’re not high. I dont blame the pot, though. They are addicts in every sense of the word.

Most people can enjoy in moderation. For some, it becomes the go-to coping mechanism for any discomfort.

Im pro legalization without a doubt, but i do think its important for people to understand that it can beome an addiction. I did a lot of my field work at an addiction treatment center. I will never forget watching a pot head start sweating at the thought of having a joint.

It can be a psychological addiction but not a physical one. There are no withdrawal symptoms, sweating? Not that I’ve ever seen. People with anxiety issues may show symptoms like that but it is not the pot but an underlying anxiety issue. Tobacco and alcohol do far more damage to our society and our health than any amount of pot smoking and it’s time people recognize what is truly dangerous to our society.

The real reason for the American obsession with keeping marijuana illegal dates back to the Great Depression. It was very political- southwestern states were trying to push out Mexican workers so the propaganda was that they were getting high on pot and going into town to rape white women… The underlying reason was economic with a big dose of racism, especially since another group associated with pot use was jazz artists (black). The medical people objected to the anti-marijuana campaign since it was based on the false idea that pot led to violent behavior. It certainly is much safer for everybody (the people who use it and those around them) than alcohol and lacks the physical addictive risk of alcohol and other drugs. Emotional dependence is possible for anything, including Twinkies and new shoes… Anyway, before the insanity many decades ago, American farmers grew marijuana. The political story of the anti-marijuana campaign had many odd repercussions. But it definitely had nothing to do with the real effect of marijuana as a recreational drug.

I don’t care about her smoking weed. I know people who smoke a joint a day to wind down from their day, but their not addicted. They’re not walk around in a pot cloud like, say, Snoop Dog…oh excuse me…Snoop Lion. I’m sure there are people who ARE addicted to weed, I just haven’t met one yet. The thing I have an issue with is her glorification of molly and coke. Who does she think her audience is? I guarantee most of them are under the age of 18. She can’t have it both ways. Be a proponent of drugs or don’t.

@jaye – I agree. It looks like she’s trying to ‘reap the benefits for her image’ by putting people’s reactions toward her ‘image’….Then, when people start criticizing the ‘real life effects’ her ‘image’ & comments/lyrics have on certain age groups, she wants to magically disassociate herself from all of it by saying it was ‘just a character’. Well, it doesn’t work that way, sweetheart. (& it irritates the sh!t out of me when she (incorrectly) quotes Cobain.)

Frustrating. I’m always torn, over her, because I find her desperation sad, & can’t help but think about how much I’d hate myself, if I had to work a seperate identity to be ‘liked’ by the people I wanted to be ‘liked’ by. That’s rough, & very highschool.

I really wish she’d stop talking about feminism. I mean yes to some degree hundreds of years of women’s efforts to work, vote, and own property have led to her being publicly naked without being flogged and then forced to marry the entire audience for seeing her naked.

This whole interview seems like an awkward attempt at damage control, but she got the message that she was *supposed* to be delivering mixed up with her version of reality. I can picture her PR person gesturing wildly at her each time she goes off message, so that she returns to the proper script. That could account for her mixed messages.

@Shannon1972 – “I can picture her PR person gesturing wildly at her each time she goes off message, so that he return to the proper script.”

That would have to be one *exhausted* PR person, whom I’d hope had gotten some sort of ‘holiday bonus’ for their stressful, tiring work. (& I can *totally* envision it too… it’d probably end up looking like military ‘code’ language (full of expletives, of course) to the rest of us xD).

The only gibberish that comes out of her that I agree with it the Joe Jonas thing. Other than that she’s a walking contradiction and I just want to wrap her up in a snuggie and stuff her in a toddler stroller because she’s behaving like an over entitled brat.

She sold herself out for the big bang at the vma’s now she has nowhere to go. As far as the tour, good luck getting people to pay hard earned money to see that slop. I predict lots and lots of empty seats

This is exactly it. She is desperately trying to be something that she is not, which a lot of people who are in their early 20s do. She thinks by acting like this she is proving how adult she is, when she seems like a bratty child. It will be interesting to see what she is doing in a couple of years.

No you don’t just pop molly and do lines all day, you instagram yourself to death, have near naked, vulgar photoshoots with known perverts and think up new ways to torture the world with your vapid self-obsession and horrid music.

Exactly. It’s a shame no one encouraged her to seek a better education or see a life outside fame before she started in on an adult career. For all her self promotion, in the end she sounds foolish and confused.

I agree Tammy, but maybe “believe her to be” should be “want her to be”. Most people just do not want to give an ounce of respect or understanding to an opinion that is not their own. If anything, I’d say her age and lack of a formal education gives more credit to her opinions, because that makes them more her own, less influenced by those around her. She is innocently disturbed by how people view each other, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.

At what age, exactly, are people finally considered responsible for their own behavior? If 21 is not yet that age, what is?!? Yes, many of us were still “finding” ourselves at 21, struggling with crappy jobs, bad relationships, and poorly conceived roommate situations, but it’s getting a little old to confuse exploitation with empowerment & and drug habits with free expression.

I am sorry, but I know people younger than her that are in foreign lands trying to establish sanitary water systems for impoverished people. There are a lot of really amazing people out there that are 18, 19, 20, 21 years old. Age isn’t a reason, it is an excuse.

@bettyrose: We’re all responsible for what we do, but come on, do you really expect a 21-year-old entertainer to be mature and sophisticated most of the time? On top of that she’s a 21-year-old who was basically told by society that she had to be virginal and innocent, and apparently she hated that, so I can totally see why she wants to be naked, wear whatever she wants, and dance however she wants now, and sees the whole nudity and sex thing as empowering.

This sort of thing seems to play out over and over again. A young Hollywood starlet goes through a wild phase where she’s all anti-ladylike and experimenting with drugs, people think she’s doomed and worry about her corrupting the kiddies, and by the time that starlet is like 33 or 34, she turns out to be fine.

She’s 21. At nineteen, I performed my first pap smear and assisted with my first surgery. At twenty, I put in my first IV and saw my first gunshot wound. At twenty-one, a man I had just interviewed went into respiratory arrest and died half an hour after I spoke to him, just as his treating physicians thought he was recovering.

Plenty of people are forced to grow up long before the age of twenty-one.

Miley trying to involve Kurt Cobain in her mess really doesn’t sit well with me. She hasn’t earned the right to quote him, properly or improperly. That said, she needs to just accept the image she has intentionally conveyed and not be so self-conscious. If I were hopelessly rich and in my early twenties I’d spend a year or two popping (well among other routes of delivery to my central nervous system) molly and doing lines as well.
And as a result, i’d likely make an ass of myself a bunch of times if I were in the public eye. Drugs kind of hinder your PR sensibilities.

I find this all rather pathetic and it takes away from the fact that she can actually sing. I have not seen Wrecking Ball, but I have heard the song and it is quite a powerful paean to a broken heart. How can we hear her when she is so busy being a ‘performer’.

I don’t think they are worried about her tour at all. She has some great singles out and other songs on the album that people love. She has since the VMAs done some performances that show she can sing live, and does still have a big enough portion of her fanbase that will follow.

But most importantly, they were smart and have two different acts opening for her, the dance synthpop duo, Icona Pop, and then Sky Ferreira, another indi pop artist, which will make her show much more attractive to those wavering. Otherwise, the tour might have been in trouble as far as sales as she transitions into trying to get an older group in there past young teens.

I dont see how miley and demi being “two little girls” invalidates his claims to have having felt peer pressured to smoke weed. If anything, i could see how that could play into his mind and make him conform even more. The “if you want to do something then you’ll do it” argument only goes so far. People are always doing things against their better judgment because they feel pressured into doing so by others. Miley and demi didn’t have to have even expilictly called on him to do it (although they probably did). The fact that they were obviously doing it in front of him with such a nonchalance attitude (not to mention they all live in such a surreal, conformist and competitive environment) is more than enough to influence a teenagers decision to do something he clearly felt uncomfortable with.

Of course at the end of the day he was the one who made the decision and followed it through but i think people like miley are making light of the pressures we place on one and another (intentional and not) and i wonder if his comments are so easily dismissed because he’s male? I actually think it was really brave of joe to admit to having felt peer pressure, and from two young girls at that.

Thank you!!!! I work with teenagers and right now there is a 4’9 girl who barely weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet, ruling the 8th grade class through intimidation. I’m tired of people acting like peer pressure wasn’t involved in Joe Jonas trying pot for the first time. If you are around teenagers for at least 5 minutes you know that not only is this a possibility but it happens all the time.

Eh, i dont buy it. Peer pressure is real, yes, but it isnt an excuse to do stuff you feel is wrong. I had plenty of friends in high school and college doing dumb stuff and stayed away from anything I felt was a bad choice. I’ve been the only person drinking soda at a high school party or the only one who said no to drugs being passed around, if it wasnt a good idea at the time. Who cares if he smoked out, anyway? Even if it was a “bad thing,” it wouldnt be the first time a teen made an error in judgment. Just own it. Blaming someone else for your own choices is immature, even if you are a teenager. Whoever is laying on the pressure is irrelevent.

I have also been forced into doing damaging things, and thats a totally different situation, ut that isnt the case here. It doesnt even sound like he was manipulated into it.

I think Miley made a lot of great points, but may be a bit troubled with expressing how she feels…and I agree with her, but think her attitude may be a little ahead of her/our time. It’s a difficult subject…and it all centers around peoples judgments towards one another. Miley wants to express her wild side, her sexuality, but without being judged as a whore or a slut. She wants to experiment with drugs, and say that’s ok, without promoting its use for others, and without being judged as a junkie or addict. I may get a lot of sht for saying this, but sometimes in life you need to take the dark road to get to the light, and I know not everyone makes it out, but we have to let go of trying to control the world around us in this way. We can’t punish and condemn thousands for the fate of a few. Drug use can be a great learning experience for some, and yes, for others it can ruin everything for them, but instead of trying to scare children against drug use with horror stories of addiction, maybe we should teach a more realistic approach to it’s use; like if you’re going to experiment, how to find the right balance between occasional use and dependency, but society doesn’t understand how to see both sides of the coin…everything is made out to be at one extreme or the other, but its obviously not working this way, nor has it ever successfully worked, trying to force, punish, or threaten one sides morals and values onto anothers’ ideals. If the world wasn’t so judging and condemning towards others, if people could look for more of the good around them instead of the bad, I don’t think so many would feel the need to get wasted anyways, but it’s a way for some to escape their harsh surroundings, when they feel they can do nothing to change them. So they adapt to tolerate it. And eventually they become the horrors that society makes them out to be, because it’s usually one side or the other. Very few learn themselves that they can be both, and even fewer tolerate seeing both sides in another. Jmo.

There are TONS of women that explore their sexuality without being labeled a slut, who own up to taking drugs without being labeled addicts, etc. They accomplish that by being multi-faceted and not being all one thing all of the time. With Miley, she has limited herself to this obnoxious persona that leaves no room for different facets. If she wants people to know she isn’t just one thing, she needs to show the public more than one thing.

I think Miley is trying to say something valid here, but she’s going to extreme measures to say it, because it’s the only way she knows how to get our attention. She’s tired of people saying that you cannot be a good person, or a person deserving of others respect unless you do a,b and c and never x,y and z…and I also think she did things that way for so long for others benefits, but she wasn’t happy being somebody that wasn’t true to herself. I think she also needs to find that balance, but either way it’s working in her favor right now because she IS making a valid statement even if it is in an extreme way… and the people that love what she is saying don’t feel the need to scream it in everybody’s face as much as the other side, so it just isn’t how it appears to be. I don’t know what kind of music most of y’all listen to but I love rap and hip hop…and in almost all the top rap songs that are out right now, references are being made to Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana, references being used to mean cocaine (white girl) or just meaning a wild party girl, but either way the rap community is embracing Miley Cyrus and do any of you ever think about why? I was speaking to one of my friends about this the other day and he was saying, we were in agreement, that this is because black people have been held back for so long due to peoples judgments and criticism of others, and the differences between rich white and poor black people have been accentuated for so long, even by those people that swear there’s no difference between white and black people besides their skin color (with two side eyes given to every poor black man for every one “highly educated” black person to whom acceptance is given) that it makes them feel loved and accepted to have a rich, famous white girl that could have and be anything she wants, say that she loves black people, culture, music and dance, even though society (not everyone but the majority) lashes out on her for doing so, but so many of these rappers have turned around to say, we’ll love you Miley, we’ll accept you, you’re welcome here and we’re not going to judge you for who you want to be as long as you don’t hurt anybody with your intentions. Because they’ve been the outcasts for so long so they know how it feels to be a Miley Cyrus in today’s world, to have judgments and hate cast against one due to stereotypes of people and due to their personal life choices. And by that I mean, what the stereotypical bad guy is that we STILL teach our children. If he’s not the rough-looking black guy, then he’s the trailer trash white guy with the tattoos on his bike, when in reality he could be anybody, look anyway, speak anyway and have any kind of life experience or background. Basically, what I’m trying to say here is it’s wrong and unfair to keep judging people by how they look, talk, dance, dress and live, or who they sleep with and what they smoke, when they are not hurting anybody but themselves. And I know a lot of people are going to say this isn’t about race at all, but then why are cutters and/or people with eating disorders given our sympathy but drug users are ostracized almost every single time? The only exceptions are when people finally begin to realize that things like addiction don’t just affect one single race or social class, which thankfully is seemingly beginning to sink in to society’s viewpoints. I don’t think everyone that dislikes Miley thinks of it this way, but I think it’s subconsciously ingrained into us soooo deeply to judge like this, and I think it’s wrong, and we need to realize it NOW. If we want people not to benefit from “shocking” behaviors, then make that shock affect things that truly are bad and wrong, otherwise it just confuses the rest of us that say to ourselves, well, who is she hurting? Anyways, Miley is my bitch right now…I love her. And if y’all don’t agree with my viewpoint I hope you can at least understand where I’m coming from. Sorry for the super long post, also I’m speaking more towards anybody that hates Miley Cyrus not just people that find her a little obnoxious.

Miley Cyrus is not an outcast. She has taken the most mainstream standard rapid approach to fame, possible. *See Kardashians, other reality stars, Gaga, Rhianna, Britney Spears, and a huge stream before her. Antics and exhibition for attention.

When she legitimizes someone like Terry Richardson to a new generation, she turns back the hand of time by decades, promoting the idea of the casting couch mandate, even though she was lucky enough not to have to go that route herself; that hurts people who don’t enjoy her level of privilege. And she had privilege. She wasn’t singing songs in the subway, scratching her way through NY on $20. She parlayed her Disney connections and fame into this “grown-up” act.

For the record, I don’t dislike Miley, but she deserves the serious side-eye from time to time. I think you are a very sweet person, but I also think you are attributing much more depth than what is really there at this point. I think Miley isn’t a terrible person, she probably doesn’t intentionally try to hurt anyone, but she is young, she is not a heroine of any kind, nor a musical genius. She plays the game well enough to keep up interest. But she doesn’t seem as though she truly knows herself yet.

“but instead of trying to scare children against drug use with horror stories of addiction, maybe we should teach a more realistic approach to it’s use; like if you’re going to experiment, how to find the right balance between occasional use and dependency, but society doesn’t understand how to see both sides of the coin…everything is made out to be at one extreme or the other”

Mmmmm…I agree with the sentiment here, but it’s simply not a society-specific problem. It’s actually the government in collusion with Big Pharma that prevents people from knowing the truth about marijuana and its benefits.

True, the government legislating and taking punitive action against drug use is one issue. On the other, it may be difficult for some people, children especially, to determine any balance. Adults, yes, but a predisposition to addictive characteristics through a familial line may hamper attempts at moderation. I say this is as a person who has no issues with casual use, provided people aren’t putting anyone else in jeopardy, by driving, for example, or performing brain surgery while stoned, and so on. I think the money spent on incarcerating people does little to enhance society and combat addiction. But realistically, not everyone can partake in recreational drug use without consequences. Some people may not know their risks, until they do it. Certainly, though, there is a difference between something like crack or oxy than smoking pot in terms of danger.

At any rate, if you are writing songs, lovingly, about anything, whether it be molly or the beach, that is an endorsement.

“Miley wants to express her wild side, her sexuality, but without being judged as a whore or a slut. She wants to experiment with drugs, and say that’s ok, without promoting its use for others, and without being judged as a junkie or addict.”

You expressed this so well. I think that if Miley Cyrus expressed herself this articulately, she wouldn’t sound contradictory and even if people disagreed with her, they’d at least understand her viewpoint.

Tiffany said: “There are TONS of women that explore their sexuality without being labeled a slut, who own up to taking drugs without being labeled addicts, etc. They accomplish that by being multi-faceted and not being all one thing all of the time. With Miley, she has limited herself to this obnoxious persona that leaves no room for different facets. If she wants people to know she isn’t just one thing, she needs to show the public more than one thing.”

I can’t think of any other female entertainers who embraced nudity, overt sexuality, and being ‘unladylike’ without being called a slut/whore for it, causing moral panic, and armchair diagnostics. I’ve even seen Leanne Rimes and Brandi Glanville get called sluts just for not wearing a bra under a t-shirt or for wearing a top that was low-cut. But I do agree with your point. Miley has become one-dimensional.

you can experiment in private. Don’t say she is just figuring herself out, learning etc. She lit a joint on stage at an awards show. She could have just smoked that joint in her lounge room, nobody would have known but she chose to make it public by doing it at a televised event therefore she is promoting it.

What a load of bulsh that is coming fro. Her mouth. She created her image, not us. She forced it down our throats n now she is sulking because we swallowed it. This girl is a moron and needs a PR team to manage her. If she is unhappy with the reaction to her image then she should not have created it in the first place. I mean, it could be predicted that people wouldn’t like to see you promoting sex and drugs to children, no? What did she expect? And now the narcissist thinks its our fault for thinking of her that way? SMH

I can see why you all do criticize some of Miley’s decisions, and I’ll agree that she doesn’t have all the answers, nor is she near finding them, but I do think she’s asking the right questions. And Miley reminds me a lot of myself at that age, and I was wild, very wild, and rebellious, and kind of stupid too, but now looking back at my life I feel that everything had to happen exactly as it did, to get to where I am now. I even felt like that back then, in between the midsts of confusion and despair, and some of you might think this sounds completely nuts, because I definitely would have, but I am under God’s protection and His will now, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because the way I think of life is, if I’m wrong, and we just become a rotting maggot feast after death, well, at least I can LIVE a life of peace for now, and maybe leave this earth a little better for my grandchildren, because being angry doesn’t save me from that fate, and it sure doesn’t make the ride any easier. Plus, my God has as amazing sense of humor, what else could He do but laugh at all this bs us humans come up with?
But back to the point, when I was about 19, messing with this creepy 35 year old (he had what I coveted, drugs), he would tease me that all I ever said to anything was ” oh well, oh well, oh f-ing well”, because that was my attitude, like who gives a f? But secretly, even then, I did, and I was fierce even then on my morals, in the way I treated people, but I used a lot of people too, just those I felt like were using me too, because it was easier justified. Miley’s opinions will change as she grows and learns and experiences life…it seems they already have. For example, how she is backtracking now on promoting drugs…, maybe she’s realized the dangers in doing so? Because people hate to admit they were wrong, so instead they start denying it, or fumbling around for excuses, just like Ms. Miley. I try to think of everyone like this, if you were my bff, could I look past this? And for Miley, it’s a big, resonating Yes, especially because she’s already much like my bff, and I think her intentions are pure. Only time will tell, I guess?

I just want to add, but my past wasn’t all confusion and despair, it was a lot of fun too and learning experience for me, but I made it out unscathed (that I know of), and not everyone does, so I’m kind of hesitating to say that because I don’t want anyone ever to think that we share that fate with drugs, but ultimately, the entire world needs to change before we expect a few celebrities and rich people to do so.

“but think her attitude may be a little ahead of her/our time….and it all centers around peoples judgments towards one another. Miley wants to express her wild side, her sexuality, but without being judged as a whore or a slut. She wants to experiment with drugs, and say that’s ok, without promoting its use for others, and without being judged as a junkie or addict. I may get a lot of sht for saying this, but sometimes in life you need to take the dark road to get to the light”

You ascribe to her a thoughtfulness and intellectualism as if she were a performance artist like Laurie Anderson. Like she’s deep. Seriously?

What is the point of expressing her “wild side” to millions of people, anyway? Is there actually a point???

As for saying drugs are okay for her but don’t you try it at home, folks. Seriously? She’s a role model for a generation of children. How naive is it to believe she has no influence. And who’s to say that she’s not an addict?

And most young people have little idea of what darkness is. She’s playing with fire because it’s exciting and because it brings her attention. This is not the dark side. But in comics and Batman movies it is. You have NO idea of the dark side.

The scary part is that some people do think that she actually has something to say while she and her dangerous ignorance are selling their future down the river.

I find it interesting that she is doing all of these things for attention and in the meantime, her album is doing fairly. Her tickets are selling okay for her tour. The only good thing is that her singles do well on the radio. It would be nice to hear less of her antics in 2014, but I think that she feels she has to do this.

That’s what she wants people to think she is … a freak who parties and smokes weed all day and pops Molly and is hyper sexual and super liberal and progressive and all of that … it’s what she wanted. It’s the persona SHE created for herself. It’s not just what people think. It’s what she advertised herself as. Own it, Miley.

She’s a hypocrite about the drugs. She sings about Molly, calls it a happy drug in one of her interviews, has made two twitter references about popping Molly, and is open about her love of weed and the fact that she’s been doing it for years, and then she complains about how she doesn’t want to influence teens or her sister to do drugs, and how people think she’s doing molly and lines all the time. She should have thought about that.

I don’t have a problem with her smoking weed or being open about that. I don’t have a problem with teens seeing her naked or seeing her revealing clothes either, because most teens have already seen all parts of the human body and I disagree with our culture’s idea that teens need to be placed in some bubble of modesty and innocence, and when I was a teen, it pissed me off when I saw adults trying to do that to me or others my age. But I do have a problem with the casual attitude she has promoted toward Molly, because that’s actually dangerous. I get that she’s playing up the drug thing to carve her image as this edgy pop rebel, but she’s going about it in an immature, lame, unnecessary, and problematic way, and she needs to change that.

I don’t think she or her backup dancers, (they’re called the L.A. Bakers) get why people felt uncomfortable with the VMA performance. It’s not that she can’t ever have a group of black back-up dancers, but it’s that people felt like they were made into accessories because of their race. Even if that wasn’t the intention of them or her, I do see how it came off that way. At the same time, I don’t think anyone’s agency should ever be erased in the decisions that they make with their own bodies and lives, even if it’s not a favorable decision, and last week the L.A. Bakers gave an interview basically saying that they don’t regret their decision or feel belittled by it at all.

I agree with the things she saying about fame, and the restrictions on entertainers, though.

I think that she took a template, and followed it to a tee, as a method to look adult and move away from the child star persona. She followed the “how to” quick route to attention and fame through sexuality and exhibitionism that MANY pop stars before her did. Now she’s not sure where she’s going. None of this stuff is groundbreaking. She wanted to be cool and a pop star, but some of those things may either conflict with who she actually is, deep inside, or she is confused about who she really is. That’s what I am getting from her collective opinions and head swirling thoughts in interviews. She’s half baked because the dough hasn’t set.

What did Maya Angelou say? “When someone shows you who s/he is, believe them”? When you can’t stop famewhoring and bragging and talking about the drugs you do and having a known jerk photograph you naked and direct your naked videos, and you somehow equate licking sledgehammers and dressing up in teddy bear onesies as deep, you give people a certain impression. You’ve been working hard on selling an image, and you accomplished that, so why the shock at how you’re perceived? Cannot wait for this woman to fade away.

There’s a special place in hell for people who glamorize drugs. There’s also – according to Katie Couric via Taylor Swift – a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women. Who knew Hell was so compartmentalized? I guess that blows my theory of a huge fiery pit where me, Hitler, Idi Amin, and that bitch who tried to get 13 items through the Express Checkout will sit around and listen to Bangerz forever and ever.

Actually I think she is a desperate attention -whore, a sort of Kim Kardashian of music industry.
The molly thing she has said is what SHE wants us to think about her. Better: is what Larry Rudolph wants us to think.

If you don’t want anyone to think that you are a drug addict or a “slut”, then don’t behave or carry yourself like you are, period. I have no sympathy for her.

She obviously has low self-esteem and is very much trying to seek validation from the public by acting out the way she does. It’s really sad. Five to ten years from now, she’s going to look back on these antics of hers with serious regret.

Except she didn’t say ‘slut’ she said ‘sex freak’. There are a couple of important differences between the two. One label is mysoginistic, while the other has nothing to do with gender or imposed morality and just means that a person is obsessed with nudity and sexuality. But I do see your point.

LOL!! She’s about as rock n roll as Gaga is punk! God damn, these people are so delusional and they are completely degrading everything that rock and hip hop set out to be. They remind me of the spoiled rich kids I went to school with, you know the ones with the stable home who feel so personally slighted by the universe for having the grave misfortune of being born into a “normal” “boring” life, the ones who try so hard to make it seem as though they have experienced as much trials and tribulations as the kids who legitimately struggled with extreme poverty or social rejection. I don’t know why they try so hard to convince us that they are these underdogs who have risen to the top and are out to right any social injustice. It’s so infuriating, condescending, and pretentious.

What did she think was going to happen when she was willingly selling herself to the public as a drug-using sexual exhibitionist? Despite any brisk ticket sales she and her team are afraid Miley will be viewed as a money pit for the label and the execs may decide to drop her.

Lots of these “stars” with money think that cash also brings wisdom, so they think they can enlighten the unwashed masses on how the real world works.
Unfortunately, these spoiled brats are surrounded by YES people who encourage this and tell them they are always right, but when a “real person” hears this claptrap they shake their head so hard they get whiplash.

Yaawn. If we’re still having these discussions about sex and drugs in (nearly) 2014, I guess we should assume that every young generation for the rest of time will “rediscover” these issues and present them as new ideas/explorations… and those of use who’ve seen this issues come and go for decades will just have to laugh and shrug our shoulders.

Right? My great aunt was doing coke way back in the 30s, and it’s been around long before then. And people were having outrageous sex since the beginning of time – have you ever read Edwardian era porn? I hate how these “musicians” are only resorting to shock value to sell albums, and it’s not even that shocking, or exciting, to begin with. They’re just recycling the same centuries-old material.

I don’t care for her costumes or some of the rather immature things she has said about for instance mental illness in the past – but I also have nothing against her image or strategy. She’s chosen her character and her style, and I have nothing against her claim to be a feminist either (this is as someone who worked at a gender research center for two years).

I can’t define feminism, but I DO know that it isn’t saying that a woman can’t be feminist if she takes her clothes off, acts “unclassy” or says stupid things in other contexts.

I don’t think that we, as feminists who fought for equal rights on many levels imagined one of those levels to be that women could get semi- naked or naked and not get judged as sluts, etc.

To take this to absurdity, I don’t see any men lobbying for the same rights to nakedness without judgment. Or see any men, especially singers, making a noise about getting semi- naked or naked as their dignified right. Are they getting naked or semi- naked on stage, in order to express their wild side? Have I missed something here, because I’m not seeing it as an issue for them and nothing of it on stage.

Men don’t really have the motivation to ‘lobby for the same rights to nakedness without judgment’, or be ‘making noise about getting semi-naked or naked as their dignified right’, because they’re not the ones who have it drilled into them from puberty onward that they have to dress modestly and abstain from nudity in order to be good, whole, moral, self-respecting, respectable, and safe people. We, as women, are the ones who are taught that we have to be sexually modest and ‘ladylike’ if we want to be treated well and looked at as good people. So that’s why women (not all, but many) feel the need to declare their right to wear whatever they want, go naked, and have sexual freedom.

For the most part men are only condemned for their sexuality if they’re seen as cheating, using and abusing, or by homophobes if they are or seem to be gay. It’s true that males in the entertainment industry don’t seem to go half-naked, in their underwear, or nude as much as the women do, but there are plenty of male models, singers, and actors who have, and not one of them are accused of being whores, bad role models, victims of exploitation, or misandrists for it. Adam Levine, Channing Tatum, and Tom Cruise have stripped multiple times throughout their careers, and nobody has ever expressed a problem with it.

Also, there is more pressure on young girls working in the entertainment industry to be seen as sexually pure in order to be ‘good role models’ and have a certain image. Miley is one of the girls who had a lot of that pressure. So to me it’s not surprising that after that she sees it as freeing to be openly and overtly sexual.

I noticed months ago that teen mags weren’t putting her on the cover any more. Now she’s trying to spin it like she’s turning THEM down. I just think she’s a spoiled sociopath who will do anything to keep the party/drugs train running and not an actual artist, like Cobain for example.

I remember her taking provocative selfies years ago. She crafted this image and now cries foul. She has zero self-awareness or is looking for more attention. Granted, she is young but an adult nonetheless.

The only thing that people think is that you need attention over anything and will do whatever to call it. Of course, this is the only way, sex, drugs, scandals… this is what sells… the problem is not you Miley, but the people who fall under this manipulation.
Maybe 20-30 years ago, you would have been considered a ‘rebel’ for these kind of acts, but now you are just one more attention whore in a world full of ‘wannabes’… you have to do it better! We’ve already seen it all. We are bored of all of this.

She’s a kid. A rich kid with more money than God but a kid none the less. If she makes it, I wonder what she will think of her behavior in 2013 when 2053 rolls around? (I’m nearly 57 and I know for a fact I was obnoxious at 19. Broke and obnoxious, however.)